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making mischief since 1973

ZI WEI YUAN

Last week, I was trying to think of a cool place to take Jun for dinner when a buddy of mine suggested we go to a steamboat/hot pot restaurant called Zi Wei Yuan in Butterworth.

Now I’m not really familiar with places on the mainland in Penang, but my friend assured me this place was dope and so I said, “Why not?” and we made the drive over.

And dope it was.

When you reach the restaurant, you basically tell the waitresses how many people you have and they will bring the correct amount of food accordingly. You can order other stuff that you like too, like mantis prawns, cuttlefish, pork balls, fish balls, tofu and many, many other things.

The star of the restaurant however, is not the food, but the soup that you cook the food in.

Zi Wei Yuan has the best steamboat/hot pot soup I have ever tasted in my life.

The soup is a special fish broth that the restaurant prepares themselves and they chuck pieces of fried fish in it to give it an extra kick. The whole pot is kept hot by a charcoal fire during your dinner, which gives the food an extra flavour that you simply cannot get from gas stoves.

Jun was VERY popular with all the waitresses at Zi Wei Yuan. Apparently they don’t get to feast their eyes on suave Japanese guys very often.

Here’s where they pre-heat your soup before bringing it to your table. Check out the huge chunks of fish in there!

This is the fried fish they put into your hot pot.

I couldn’t figure out what this was but if it makes the soup taste better then please put more in.

When we arrived at the restaurant it was fully packed but by the time we finished most of the people had left but make no mistake, Zi Wei Yuan is packed every day.

One more photo of the hot pot for good measure. I drank at least 10 bowls of the soup before calling it a day. I really didn’t want to stop drinking the soup but I just couldn’t fit anymore liquid into my stomach.

I almost wanted to do the Roman-thing and puke everything up so I could eat everything all over again but luckily I managed to restrain myself.